James, Toelle run away with golf tournament title

Matt James and Jason Toelle made a 12 1/2-hour, overnight drive to compete in the Lubbock Public Course Championship.

The rest of the field wishes they wouldn't have bothered.

The long-knocking residents of Las Vegas, Nev., fired a final-round 63 on Monday at Reese Golf Center, capping a nine-stroke, wire-to-wire victory in the revamped Memorial Day weekend tournament played on three courses over three days.

"They should have stayed in Vegas," joked Aaron Ledbetter, the runner-up along with partner Jason Whittle. "Those guys beat us, and with their score, we're happy with second."

James and Toelle led by six strokes after the first round and seven after round two, and on Monday their victory was never in doubt after they shot 5-under par on the front nine. They went 4 under from there to cap a bogey-free round that put them at 28 under for the 54-hole tournament.

James, a 20-year-old California native who played at Odessa College for a year, did all the damage on the front nine. He and Toelle each made a birdie on the back, and James added an eagle at No. 12 in which his drive ended up about 80 feet short of the green on the 510-yard par 5 that doglegs to the right around water.

"He definitely kept it together today," Toelle said of his partner, who was a late addition after the original one backed out about a week ago. "He's the star of the day."

James credited Toelle, a 26-year-old Roosevelt graduate who lived in Lubbock until six months ago, for helping him navigate the 6,633-yard, par-72 layout at Reese along with The Rawls Course and Shadow Hills Golf Course, where the first two rounds were played. James also said he wouldn't have been able to blister the course on Monday without Toelle's mother, Carolyn, who tended to a "pretty big blister" on the bottom of his right foot.

"His mom was a saint," James said. "She doctored my foot up every night and every morning, and she made sure that I was doing all right.

"On a scale from one to 10, my foot on the first day felt like a zero, and now it feels like a six. It would have felt like a two if she didn't do anything to it, so that helped tremendously."

James, who was playing in his first Lubbock city major, also praised the overall hospitality he received in West Texas and the chicken fried steak at the Pancake House, where he and Toelle ate their first meal upon arriving in town Friday afternoon.

Toelle, who finished fifth when the tournament was played entirely at Reese last year, said it "feels really good" to win his first city major. He also said he and James plan to return next year to defend their title, but they don't plan to spend another 24 hours or so on the road.

"We will not drive next time. We will fly," Toelle said. "The only good thing about going back is we gain two hours."